Mark Webber and Sarah Snook Leading Horror Film ‘Jessabelle’

In a move from indie comedy to indie horror, Variety reports that Mark Webber (Scott Pilgrim, The End of Love) will, along with Sarah Snook (Sleeping Beauty), star for director Kevin Greutert (Saw 3D) and producer Jason Blum in Jessabelle. Written by scribe-for-hire Robert Ben Garant (Night at the Museum, Balls of Fury), the story follows “a woman (Snook) who is forced to return to her father’s home in Louisiana when a car accident leaves her without the use of her legs.” Soon, though, “she discovers a mystery surrounding her own birth, as well as an angry ghost determined to destroy her.” Webber has been signed to play “her childhood friend who helps her uncover the truth about her family.”

A good deal of that logline sounds like something you can get in half your horror pictures — a young girl, a Southern setting, spooky ghosts, etc. — and a Saw director doesn’t scream “potential,” so it’s this duo that imbues whatever hope likely wouldn’t have been present in the first place.

Snook is an unknown to myself — though I’ll take David Fincher‘s draw toward her during the Dragon Tattoo casting process as a plus (she was one of five finalists) — and Webber is pretty much liked by everybody because he’s, for lack of deeper explanations, great. Channeling their talents toward a half-decent script could actually go a long way, so long as things actually worked out well on the page.